My Death by Moaning Myrtle
by Komaki Nakao
Summary: Myrtle tells us about what happens after one dies. Written for XxrandomxX's "Chicken Soup for the Witch/Wizard's Soul".


Throughout the course of your life, you'll probably read about death countless times. This, the Grey Lady once told me, is because death is one of the very few human experiences that we all share. If you write something about death, she said, people will want to read it, because they are curious about what is one of life's great mysteries. It's troubling to think about an unknown, and somehow, reading a story about life after death makes such an idea more tangible.

I, however, think that this is a bunch of rubbish. When I was alive, I almost never thought about death. But now that I _am_ deceased, I feel like I should tell you what it is really like. That way, when it happens to you, you'll be a bit more prepared. Grim won't be able to cheat you the way he cheated me.

When I died, I didn't even realize that it had happened. I was sitting in the bathroom, crying because that dreadful Olive Hornby was teasing me again, when I heard someone outside my stall. He was muttering some sort of nonsense to himself. _Him_self. I furrowed my brows, wiping my face free of tears as I poked my head out.

"You're not supposed to be in here," I yelled at him. "Go away!"

I don't even think I had time to blink, and suddenly, my surroundings changed. I found myself in the middle of what appeared to be a waiting room. It was filled with chairs, and most of the chairs were filled with people. There were all sorts of people there. In one corner of the room stood a group wearing outfits made entirely of blue and white striped fabric. They all had shaved heads, and looked sickly skinny. Next to them sat an elderly woman, who rocked back and forth nervously. She was so old that her back was starting to curve under the weight of her years; I thought for sure that she would snap in half at any second. There was a pair of children sitting at her feet – a boy and a girl – who were playing with a set of brightly colored blocks.

There were so many faces, and I can remember each and every one of them as if it were yesterday. After you die, it becomes much easier to remember things.

"Please, have a seat," the receptionist said. She had dark skin, and her pale green eyes matched the robes she was wearing.

I gulped, so frightened that I obeyed her order without question. I took the only empty seat in the room; between a young gentleman who appeared to be dressed as a muggle soldier, and another man, who was at least forty years old, and dressed quite lavishly.

"Hello," the older one said, holding out his hand for me to shake. He had a thick, deep accent that I didn't recognize. "It is a pleasure to meet you."

"Don't talk to him," the other solider whispered into my ear. "Please don't."

I shot him an annoyed look; who did he think he was - telling me what to do, when he didn't even know me? I put on a smile, however, as I turned back to shake the older man's hand, "It's a pleasure to meet you as well, Mister-"

"Oh," he laughed, patting me on the head. "You may call me Boris, dear."

"Wonderful," the soldier said, burying his face in his hands helplessly. "Now he'll _never_ shut up."

His comments didn't seem to faze Boris, who grinned broadly at me as he asked, "And what may I call you?"

"Myrtle," I said. "My name is Myrtle."

"Myrtle," he repeated in that booming voice. "A fine name indeed! Tell me, Myrtle, how did such a young little girl end up in this place?"

"I don't know," I sighed exasperatedly. "I was sitting in the girls bathroom, crying because Olive Hornby was teasing me-"

"Who is Olive Hornby?" Boris asked.

"She's a girl I go to school with," I explained. "She's awful, Boris – just awful! Oh, if you knew half of the terrible things she's said to me-"

"Myrtle," the receptionist interrupted. "Mr. Reaper will see you now."

I gulped, "Who is-"

"Now wait just a damned second!" Boris hollered, jumping to his feet. He towered over me – over everyone else in the room for that matter – and he was so scary that I found myself crying once again. The group in the striped suits cowered, as did the children. The older woman didn't seem to notice.

The receptionist sighed, "Sir-"

"I've been waiting and waiting!" he screamed at her. "She's only been here for a few-"

"It's out of my control who goes when," she said sternly. "You know that."

"But I'm Boris the Third!" he bellowed, pointing to himself. "Tsar of Bulgaria! You can't just push me aside like a piece of trash!"

"Oh, shut up!" the young soldier yelled at him, rising from his seat as well. "None of that matters anymore! Here, no one means more than anyone else!"

I sat between them as they continued arguing, completely petrified. My glasses were smudging up with tears, but I couldn't bring myself to wipe them away.

The receptionist sighed, moving from her place behind the desk to come retrieve me. As she stepped out into the open, I saw a bloody butcher knife sticking out of her side. I yelped, but no one else seemed to notice.

"Oh, this," she said, glancing at the knife as though it were nothing important. "Don't let that frighten you. I don't even notice it anymore."

"B-b-but," I stammered. "Y-you can't p-possibly still be… alive…"

"Come along, Myrtle," she said, holding out her hand to me. "Be a good girl and come to the back room."

I wanted to snap at her for being so condescending, but my fear kept my mouth clamped shut as she led me across the tiny room, through a simply wooden door, which didn't look like anything special on the outside.

It didn't look like anything special on the inside, either. The office wasn't even half of the size of the waiting room; the desk, a few antique chairs, and a few filing cabinets took up most of the space in the room. A very young man – he couldn't have been older than twenty – sat on top of the desk, sorting through a messy stack of papers. He had neatly combed black hair, and his red eyes seemed to have a natural light in them. His ears were pointed like an elf's, and were covered from lobe to tip with silver piercings. He wore a matching silver rings on most of his fingers, some of which were decorated with jewels of various colors. He looked like the devil; handsome and beautiful, but extremely dangerous.

"I'll leave the two of you to your business," the receptionist said, closing the door behind her as she left.

"No, wait!" I called after her, not wanting to be left alone with that petrifying man. As the door closed, I noticed the coat rack that had been hiding behind it. The only thing dangling from its brass hooks was a long, black shroud. A scythe was propped up against the wall nearby. The sight was enough to cause me to yelp with terror.

"Hmmm?" the man on the desk mumbled, looking up to see what was going on. A tiny smile flickered across his ghastly white face. "Oh, don't mind that. T'is just my uniform; though I don't wear it much these days. Everything is automated. I pretty much just sit here at my desk most of the time. It's a bit dull, really-"

"W-what's going on?" I demanded, suddenly feeling like my whole body had turned into liquid gelatin. "Something isn't right here; this place isn't normal."

"That all depends on one's definition of the word _normal_," he said, examining one of the papers with a twisted expression before he placed it in one of his piles. "Myrtle, please have a seat while I dig out your file."

"Alright…" I gulped, sitting down in one of the empty chairs. The man hopped off of his desk gracefully, looking quite smug as he sauntered over to the filing cabinet, which he then proceeded to dig through ravenously.

"Wait a second," I said, turning my torso so I could keep an eye on him. "How did you know my name?"

"It's in my appointment book," he said, pulling his head out of the drawer with a beige file in hand.

"Appointment book?" I questioned, my eyes following him as he took his place on the other side of the desk. "I don't remember making an appointment of any sort!"

"This is the kind of appointment one doesn't plan for themselves, in most cases," he said simply. He opened my folder, pulling a pair of spectacles out of the air. They looked so odd against his facial features – a human object on such an inhuman face – and they fell down to the tip of his nose as he skimmed over the contents of the file. "Let's see… muggle-born witch, age fourteen."

My jaw dropped, "How did you know-"

"I know everything about you, Myrtle," he said arrogantly, looking at me over the rims of his glasses. "It's all right here."

My heart was pounding so wildly I could hear it in my ears. I was too frustrated to worry about being frightened, and I leaned forward and slammed my fist down on the desk, "Now you listen here! I demand do know what's going on!"

He smirked, "Why, haven't you figured it out? You're dead."

"D-d-dead?" I stammered.

"Dead," he nodded. "Otherwise your file wouldn't say, _died June 13__th__, 1943_, would it?"

"But I c-c-can't be…" I blubbered, unable to bring myself to say that horrible word.

"Of course you can," he said. "You were only mortal, after all."

"Then you're-"

"The Grim Reaper," he said proudly, leaning back in his chair. "You can just call me Grim, if you like; or Mr. Reaper, if you're a fan of formality."

I gulped, "Then all those people in the waiting room…"

"Dead," he said, laughing gleefully as he span around in his chair. "Dead! Dead! _Dead_!"

"Stop that!" I snarled. "How can you be so happy about such a gruesome thing? It's disgusting!"

"Death isn't disgusting," he said, sounding quite offended. "Mortals just don't understand it; that's why they find it so frightening. Most people who have passed on find the afterlife to be… well, quite nice."

"So… what does one _do_ in the afterlife?" I asked curiously.

"That's actually what we're here to determine," Grim sighed. "When someone passes on, they're given a choice of several… _occupations_. Most simply chose to cross over to the other side, but that option doesn't always appeal to those who suffered a particularly horrific death, like you did."

"How _did_ I die?" I asked. I couldn't believe that the thought had never crossed my mind…

"Sorry, Myrtle; if you don't already know, I can't tell you" he said. "Strictly classified information; the only way you can find out is through your own personal investigation."

My eyebrows rose, "And how do I do that?"

"Several ways," said Grim. "If you do chose to cross on over, you can wait for someone who knows the answer to die, and then they'll tell you. Or, if you chose to return to the world of the living – as a ghost, of course – you can ask someone personally."

"I can be a ghost?" I asked, feeling a strange surge of excitement at the very thought.

The Grim Reaper nodded, "Of course. Given your situation, we can dodge most of the written paperwork; you'd just have to sign-"

"I'll do it," I cackled, ready to get back to Hogwarts to put Olive Hornby back in her place. "I want to be a ghost!"

I should have known something was wrong from the start. Grim was too eager to have me sign that contract, and I was naive enough to make a deal with the devil without even seeing what the deal _was_. My lust for revenge blinded me…

As soon as the quill left the paper, I found myself back in the girl's lavatory. When I looked straight ahead, I saw my reflection. I looked just as I had in life, only more transparent. When I looked down, I saw my dead body, lying on the bathroom floor with its eyes wide open.

_I wonder what they'll say when they find me,_ I thought, looking down at myself sadly. _I wonder if anyone will miss me. They probably won't…_

"Myrtle, are you in here?" I heard Olive Hornby ask as she rapped on the bathroom door.

I smirked, hungry for my vengeance. It was a struggle for me to mask those emotions as I whimpered, "Yes, I'm in here…"

"Are you in here sulking, Myrtle?" she said, as snobbish as ever. "Professor Dippet asked me to look for you-"

And then she saw me; both my body, sprawled out across the bathroom floor _and_ the spirit hovering over it.

"N-n-n-no," she stammered, her eyes growing as big and round as dinner plates. "It c-can't be…"

"Yes," I sniffled. "I'm dead, Olive. And it's all your fault."

"N-n-no," she said again, so horrified that her legs gave way, causing her to collapse onto the ground beneath her. "I wasn't… I didn't d-d-do…"

"You're the one who teased me," I screamed, on the verge of hysterics myself. "If you hadn't made me so upset, I never would have come in here, and I never would have _died_!"

"P-p-professor Dippet!" she screamed, scampering from the bathroom on all fours. I could hear her helpless cries as she rushed away.

I snickered, leaning back so I was floating face-up. When you become a ghost, flying and floating are as natural as breathing is when you're alive.

"That was magnificent!" I declared.

"Yes, simply splendid," I heard Grim say from behind me. "That Olive Hornby is going to regret the day she picked on you, I can tell."

I turned around quickly, surprised to find him floating right behind me, his legs crossed under him as though he were perched on his desk. He wasn't wearing his black robe, but he had his scythe resting on his shoulder.

"Well, that was fun," I said, holding my head up high. "I'm ready now."

He blinked, "Ready for what?"

"To cross over, of course," I said. "I did what I wanted to do; I taught that nasty Olive a lesson. I'm done, so now I can cross over."

"Oh no," he said, wagging his finger at me. "Nope, sorry; that isn't how it works."

If I had a heart, I would have felt it plummet into my stomach, "What?"

"You signed a contract, Myrtle," said Grim. "And that contract is iron clad. You have to remain in the world of the living until the time stated in your contract runs out."

"And how long will that be?" I asked desperately.

"Eternity," he told me as his form began to disintegrate, until the space he had occupied was empty. The sound of his cackling rang in my ears for several moments afterwards.

"Eternity…" I sniffled, sinking down to the floor next to my body. "Oh no, I've made a terrible mistake!"

"Hello? Is anyone in here?" the familiar voice of Professor Dumbledore inquired.

"Professor!" I sobbed. "Please, help me! Please…"

In seconds, he was standing in front of me, looking at me with dismay.

"I'm dead," I told him, my voice muffled by tears.

Dumbledore nodded, "Yes, I can see that…"

And that's how I came to haunt the second floor girl's bathroom. At first, I was devastated. The reality of my death slowly set in over the course of the next several weeks, and I cried so much that I flooded the bathroom.

Grim comes to visit the Hogwarts ghosts from time to time – apparently he likes to visit all of the spirits who chose to inhabit the earth occasionally. The first several times I saw him, I begged him to let me out of my contract, but he only laughed at me. Now I don't even bother. I've learned to live with my choice. From time to time, I find myself regretting it, but it isn't all bad…

So for those of you who want to know; there is only one big difference between life and death. In life, you can almost always go back and fix your mistakes. You can apologize to that friend you wronged, or quit that bad habit, or anything else you can think of. Even though it's difficult, and even if you don't want to, the chance is still there. But once you make that first choice _after_ your death, you're stuck. Because that's what death is, in the end. Death is eternity.


End file.
